No More Sailing
by Ridyr
Summary: he war is over, the Normandy has crash landed on an alien planet, and Tali has volunteered to search Shepard's quarters for some indication of how best to honor their fallen commander during the afternoon's memorial service. What she finds instead is an open computer, and every indication that Shepard spent her last night alive with her mind on the lover she couldn't save. (Shrios)


For a woman who could hack her way –and usually did—through every locked computer, terminal, and weapons locker in the galaxy so long as someone left it out where she could see it, Shepard had always been strangely inept when it came to her personal technology. The stereo in her quarters had played through the same cycle of songs over and over again over the years, or had been turned off. Tali couldn't remember a time when the music had ever changed, or hadn't simply been turned off, because Shepard had never been able to work her way past some glitch (or, Tali suspected, the fact that Shepard had never gotten around to obtaining something other than the demo version of the sound system, let alone any new music to put on it) that kept her from adding anything new to the playlist that provided that background music to her quarters. To Shepard. Tali associated her with the same tunes, over and over, just as much as she had with the almost embarrassing dancing the music had sometimes inspired. How many times had the crew joked about that behind her back, or in Garrus's case, to her face? As she picks her way through the broken glass and spilled water that –unlike the fish themselves—no one has gotten around to cleaning up yet, Tali misses that dancing. She misses the music and Shepard's constant oscillation between dancing badly through her quarters and proclaiming whatever happened to be playing to be her favorite song . . . and throwing objects from her desk towards the stereo controls because she'd gotten so sick of hearing the same song on repeat that having to stand up to change it my hand had turned in her mind to some kind of affront. She misses the light in the room and the wine glasses that Shepard always kept out on the table, that she had even gone to the trouble of filling with something that Tali could drink on more than one occasion. Now, like the fish tank, they are shattered across the floor.

Shepard's quarters are broken, and empty, and the worst part of it isn't the damage, but the fact that Shepard herself will never step through the door again, whether to laugh off the mess or groan about it. Commander Shepard, insofar as anyone in this confusing new universe of synthetic organics can tell, is never coming home. She went down without her ship, and it's up to her crew, now, up to her squad, to pick of the broken pieces she left behind.

Tali picks her way around the shattered glass.

The entire sound system appears to be intact, but there is no music in the room. The holographic interface to the left of the bed still blinks to life every few minutes, suspending a hollow representation of empty N7 armor in the air for a moment before the machinery lets out a click and a whine and the image cuts out once again. Shepard's computer had been moved at some point from the counter by the now broken display case –in which the Normandy still hangs—to the smaller desk by her bed, and though it slid to the floor during the crash, it looks to be intact. Tali picks it up gingerly, and cradles it with one arm, pushing buttons and drawing it back to life with her free hand. There's an encryption, but it's a simple one. The machine has been hibernating, and the last screen Shepard looked at is still open on the display when Tali overrides it. There are three open windows. One is a document, unfinished, the curser still blinking in the middle of the page. The second is a folder, untitled. The last is a pop up window for some kind of personal music software; Shepard's preferred alternative to the repetitive playlist of the cabin's sound system.

The room, so empty, and so broken, is stifling. Looking at the last thing Shepard looked at before she loaded up her weapons, before she equipped her carefully modified armor, before she left forever . . . Suddenly, Tali doesn't want to be here anymore. The idea –the mission she'd accepted—of looking through some of Shepard's things in hopes of finding some kind of final request: a will or a note she'd left scribbled on one of the few sheets of paper she kept on her desk, that might tell them what they should do to honor her. There's supposed to be a memorial service today, and so far, none of them have thought of anything better than placing a plaque on a wall. That is what brings Tali to this horribly stifling little room where she once sipped dextro-friendly cocktails while Shepard drank red wine, where they'd laughed as Tali had told her all of the crew gossip that she missed out on as a commanding officer; as someone who garnered some fear as well as respect. This is the room where she'd once surprised Shepard by arriving at the door with one of the commander's undershirts in hand and the words _you seem to have left this in life support, commander_. She can remember laughing at the look on Shepard's face, remembers teasing her until she finally shrugged and said _I guess that secret's out_, took the shirt from Tali, and poured her a drink. And smiled. She smiled a lot in those days, after they'd conquered the collectors and before the Alliance had grounded the Normandy and turned the rest of them off the ship. They were self-satisfied, wholesome, little smiles, sometimes to herself as if she were enjoying some secret, some promise she knew was going to be fulfilled later on.

But those smiles had all gone away. By the time that Tali returned to the Normandy, it didn't matter how many wins or losses they experienced in a day, how many war assets they acquired or how much hope Tali tried to find and offer to her friend, Shepard hadn't laughed so much those last few weeks . . . and she certainly hadn't smiled to herself anymore, ruefully or otherwise. Her sense of humor hadn't gone –she'd laughed endlessly while recounting a few choice comments an inebriated Grunt had shared with her during the party that Tali herself had been too intoxicated to witness— but there were fewer bright expressions. Less generous decisions. A slew of missions aimed at Cerberus bases; one after the other, as quickly as FTL travel would allow. And there was something else about the Citadel, she remembers: after the memorial, Shepard had disappeared for an hour and returned with the same even expression she always wore, but with the mascara missing from her eyes. Wiped away, maybe, but not entirely reapplied. An uncharacteristic, exhausted lapse not quite overruled by the fun she seemed to have during the rest of the night; during the party had happened after that. Tali had spent much of it in the bathroom.

Not that every moment on the citadel was so dreary, there were brighter moments. There was a quiet afternoon. They'd watched Fleet and Flotilla. Tali had tried to make her laugh. Instead she'd learned that Shepard was terrible at keeping up with subtitles, but that she didn't sing nearly as badly as she danced. That day, rumor had it, she'd also let Liara teach her a song on her piano.

_I'm worried about Shepard, _Liara had confided to her later, _She seems all right much of the time, but sometimes, she seems so full of sorrow_. Tali had agreed. _Maybe this war is taking its toll._

They had all lost a lot, planets and friends and family and, from time to time, hope; but Shepard had lost all of that with the weight of command on her shoulders. She'd born it so well that whatever fractures it was leaving in her heart showed only in those small lapses –in the hour after the memorial or an order given more harshly than usual, and so on—but they knew she wasn't impervious. Or at least they'd told themselves that they knew better. That they knew Shepard was as capable of dying, or of being shaken, of crying or shouting as any of them. She never _did _those things, crying and shouting, but looking back, Tali wonders how many times she must have wanted to. The commander hadn't lived without some measure of survivor's guilt.

_I should have saved them, _she had said one night, several drinks further in than Tali was and more loose-lipped than she'd probably meant to be, _Ashley. Legion. That kid on Earth . . ._

_None of that is your fault, Shepard._

Shepard had ignored her, her gaze shifting into the distance, a small tremble moving through her lips.

_Thane._

_Shepard—_

_I had another unit of medi-gel, if I'd just given it to him . . . if I'd bought him a little more time . . ._

Shepard hadn't said anything else after that, but she did finish the bottle. And when Tali tried to hug her, Shepard had hung her head and allowed it. It was one of only two times that Shepard ever mentioned what happened to him in so many words; the other being when she had explained a little vaguely how he'd said goodbye. There had been a prayer she said, and apparently –Tali had never read it herself— a message at Shepard's private terminal that Liara had whispered to her about when she first returned to the Normandy.

_Tali, there's something I'd like to discuss with you, regarding Shepard._

Don't ask her about him, because he's gone. Sooner than they'd thought.

Tali had waited for Shepard to be the one to bring it up:

_I suppose someone has mentioned Thane by now. _That's what she'd said, while leaning over a console in engineering at Tali's side.

_I—yes, I have. I'm sorry Shepard._

They hadn't said much else. Maybe they should have. Maybe they should have talked more about a lot of things, while they still had the chance. Tali has to look away from the computer in her hands, look at anything else.

_Are you with him now, Shepard? _She wonders. She can feel a tear escaping down her cheek, and for a moment she wants to break something, to throw Shepard's computer against the wall, to shout up at the window in the ceiling, through the trees of this planet they've crashed on, and shout into the stars that Shepard should have stayed, that they need her, too. The she needs her. That she misses her friend –her captain—more than she can bear.

Of course, she doesn't actually throw anything. Instead she inhales, a shuttering, teary breath, and presses "play" on the last song Shepard listened to. It sounds old, like 20th century Earth music, full of horns and highlighted by a solo male voice. Shepard had stopped listening about one minute into the song.

_It's far, beyond the star,_

_It's near behind the moon . . ._

The man sings while Tali investigates the other open windows on the computer.

_We'll meet beyond the shore,_

_We'll kiss, just as before . . ._

The half-finished document is some kind of journal or diary entry, and Tali can't bring herself to read it. Not yet. She turns to the unnamed file instead.

_Happy we'll feel beyond the sea,_

_And never again, I'll go sailing . . ._

She opens it, and is met with a series of video files as saved messages, some dated from the first weeks of the war, others from nearer to the end. There are e-mails –_Is this address valid? Never lose Hope—_and four vids. She can see Thane's dark eyes in the file thumbnails. There is a picture of him, and other pictures perhaps taken _by _him: Shepard in an N7 t-shirt rolled halfway up her stomach sitting in her underwear in bed, making faces at the camera. Shepard reaching towards the photographer. Shepard on her back, tangled in the sheets with Thane beside her, smirking while he looks at her with smiling intrigue, an omni-tool and an arm visible in the bottom of the frame. There is only one like this, capturing a more playful side of Shepard and her partner's pleasant surprise, though there are a few more of _him_ further down, taken in rapid fire succession and showing a short progression: Thane looking out a window facing what might be the presidium, Thane catching his photographer in the act with a look of mild consternation –masking hesitant amusement— on his face. Thane with his arms crossed and a word on his lips that probably meant something to Shepard; that thing he called her all the time, maybe. Tali can imagine it:

_Siha, in my profession, an abundance of identifying images is—_

_Thane, come on. It's me._

He looks into the camera in the last frame with his hands folded on the table between him and his photographer, compliant as can be.

Tali wonders when they'd had time for all of these stolen moments. Shepard's song plays on.

_We'll meet, I know we'll meet, beyond the shore . . ._

_We'll kiss, just as before . . ._

Finally, slowly, she turns her attention to the last open window. The unfinished document. Shepard's final words.

_Happy we'll be beyond the sea, and never again, I'll go sailing._

The unfinished document is a journal entry of some kind. There is a date typed in shorthand near the top: an informal entry for an informal record. The rest looks like a transcription of an audio entry, full of pauses and stops. Tali begins to read.

_I had another dream last night. One of the nightmares, in the woods. The little boy from Earth was there as usual, and the voices. There are a lot of them now. They're not all bad, but a lot of them want to know why they had to die under my command. I wish I knew –or maybe I don't. . . _

_I don't know why it's always them and not me. But I hear all of their voices every time I have this dream and it reminds me of all of them. Even the ones I don't hear. _

_. . . I miss Thane. _

_That __**stupid **__dream always . . . Maybe I should mention it to someone, Liara and Tali would both be upset if they knew I'd been holding this kind of thing in, but then again, it's just a dream. Right? I don't know. But it sure as hell sucks to wake up alone with that in your head. _

_I wish—_

_It doesn't matter what I wish. What matters is now. We're on our way to Earth and after that . . . I guess we'll see if I get to that part . . . There was something different this time, about the dream. It wasn't just the kid who burned up at the end. It was both of us, I watched myself holding him and we both died. And I think that maybe there's a reason for that. I think I've finally realized that maybe I won't make it out of this alive and . . . I'd like to that's not the case but . . . But it's been a long war. _

_I'm going to miss them if . . . _

_I'll miss all of them. Liara, James, EDI, even Javik. And Garrus. Tali. But they'll be alright. They'll get through it together, just like we've gotten through everything else. And as for me, I suppose . . . if the worse happens . . . Then I won't be alone long. _

_I—_

_**/pause order recognized/**_

_/__**pause order malfunction, continuing transcription/**_

_Yeah Joker?_

_**/Warning: indirect audio input detected- microphone proximity error/ **_

_Ok. I'll be right up._

_**/Connection lost/**_

_**/Pause recording/**_

The cursor blinks.

Tali has to set the computer down, bumping the screen as she does, sending the still playing song back to some in determinant point in the recording. Tali puts her head in her hand.

'_Then I won't be alone long.'_

_Is that your final message, Shepard?_

As if in reply, the song plays the same line from earlier.

_We'll meet beyond the shore, we'll kiss just as before . . ._

_Happy we'll be beyond the sea . . ._

Another tear, a fat, rolling tear, spills over and makes its way from Tali's eye and down her cheek to her jaw. It stops there in droplet form and quivers, making up its mind between the surface of her skin and giving in to gravity. Tali turns her gaze skyward, looking through the window in the bulkhead above, and it shivers away down her chin.

This is the second time this part of the song as played, and she thinks she knows the words. Though her voice cracks once, a quiet hiccup in this room of broken glass and outdated music, she tries to sing along.

_And never again, I'll go sailing . . ._

She looks into the sky and thinks of their names, their faces, their photographs, and thinks: _Keelah se'lai, Thane. Shepard._

_Keelah se'lai._

* * *

_A/N: _This is my first time writing for Mass Effect. It's intimidating, because there are so many possible outcome, but I hope someone out there enjoyed my particular rendition of this ship and what happens after ME3.

The song featured here, if anyone was wondering, is Beyond the Sea by Bobby Darin.


End file.
